by Peter Tonkin
‘The shipment of crack cocaine from the Philippines.’
‘Yes, two full containers’ worth.’
‘I thought you said that the White Powder Triad had sold the company on, to Heritage Mariner, through Mr Charles Lee.’
‘Indeed they had, but clearly they wished to make one last great killing. And the pipeline was still in place, even though the company had changed hands.’
‘I see. So Captain Mariner, in receipt of a fax about drug smuggling aboard his vessels, reported this contact to the authorities?’
‘He alerted the Foreign Office to the fact that he was travelling abroad and came to Singapore, arriving within twenty-four hours of receipt of the fax.’
‘What did he do then?’
‘He checked into the Raffles Hotel and contacted our operative at the China Queens Office. He did not know, of course, that she was working for us.’
‘And what transpired?’
‘We do not know, and neither do the authorities here. The operative had vanished within twelve hours. It seems that they spent some time together and yet neither of them passed any information on to the authorities either in Singapore or here — or in London, come to that. Though we have reason to believe that Captain Mariner communicated at some length with his wife. Whatever they talked about, and whatever communications resulted from their conversation, nothing was communicated to the authorities, a fact which we regarded then and regard now as having possibly sinister implications. Captain Mariner was the last person to see our operative alive, as far as we know.’
‘My Lord, this is mere innuendo.’
‘No, Ms DaSilva, I think we have a report of fact here, which the jury may choose to interpret as they will. Please proceed, Mr Po.’
‘Thank you, My Lord. So Captain Mariner talked at length to your operative at the China Queens Company. She then disappeared. The authorities remained in ignorance of anything untoward in the offing. What then?’
‘Then the Sulu Queen arrived at Singapore, Captain Mariner went aboard as soon as the ship was turned around, took over command and sent the original captain, Walter Gough, ashore. Captain Gough had also vanished within a matter of hours. We believe both Captain Gough and our operative are dead.’
‘What evidence do you have for supposing that they are dead?’
‘The fact that, with the exception of Captain Mariner and Mr Lee, everyone else involved in this incident seems to be dead. Except for the Triad members, as far as we know. And Mrs Mariner, though of course her personal involvement seems to have come later, after Captain Mariner’s communication reached her.’
‘Could you enlarge upon the involvement of Mrs Mariner as you understand it?’
‘My Lord!’ Maggie was up, trembling with outrage at this unexpected turn.
‘Ms DaSilva, are you wishing to infer that Mrs Mariner has not been involved in this case?’
‘No, My Lord, but —’
‘Then I can see no grounds for an objection at this point. You may hold yourself ready to cross-examine, of course, Ms DaSilva. In the meantime, Mr Po?’
‘Thank you, My Lord. Mr Syme?’
‘Within eight hours of her husband’s formal arrest, Mrs Mariner was on her way to the Crown Colony. She was interviewed by myself and one of my operatives on the plane on the way out and she reacted extremely negatively to assurances that no special treatment could be guaranteed for her husband. Immediately on her arrival here, Mrs Mariner was in contact with a local solicitor and had acquired the services of an eminent local barrister. I am talking about a woman who has come halfway round the world to a strange city and achieved all this in less than twenty-four hours. Mrs Mariner achieved something close to a miracle of organisation within the first twenty-four hours. Within the next twelve she was seen in the company of Twelvetoes Ho, the last major Triad leader left in the Crown Colony. The last of what we call the 469s left here. And Mr Ho has been seen in her company since. Indeed, he has been seen dining with defence counsel’s friend Ms Patel.’ Both Maggie and Lata reacted to this testimony — but there was little they could do other than to brindle and blush.
‘On that point,’ prompted Mr Prosecutor Po before Maggie could think of an objection, ‘might the jury be shown exhibit Number Twenty-One?’ This was the first photograph the jury had seen since the photographs of the corpses and the places where they had died. Many jurors reacted with horror at the thought of another one, but this picture simply showed a restaurant table laden with curry at which an elderly Chinese man was in animated conversation with a young lady whose bloodline clearly reached back to the Indian subcontinent.
‘So, within thirty-six hours of her arrival in Hong Kong, Mrs Mariner was in contact with the leading Triad member in the colony, and he has remained in close contact with the defence team.’
‘Yes.’
‘What else do you know of Mrs Mariner’s movements that have a bearing on this case?’
‘During the course of my investigations into the most likely places in the colony where drugs might be obtained in order to discover what had happened to the crack cocaine I believed the Sulu Queen had been carrying — guided, of course, by one of Commander Lee’s men — I visited the club here where cocaine is usually available and to my surprise saw Mrs Mariner, looking very much at home.’
‘My Lord! I must protest!’
‘Mr Syme, please confine yourself to answering the questions put to you.’
‘I apologise, My Lord.’
‘Very well. Please proceed, Mr Po.’
‘Thank you, My Lord. So Mr Syme, within a few hours of her arrival here Mrs Mariner was in the company of a leading Triad figure and within a few days she was observed by yourself where, precisely?’
‘In a club noted for cocaine dealing.’
‘Is this club the sort of place a tourist lady might find herself visiting innocently?’
‘It is called Bottoms and its cabaret specialises in what I believe is called bondage. People are tied up and subjected to various sorts of more or less painful abuse. It is not a place which any lady would ever find herself visiting. Unless she had business there.’
‘My Lord!’
‘Very well, Ms DaSilva. The jury will please disregard Mr Syme’s imputation. Please take more care, Mr Po.’
‘With respect, My Lord, the point was carefully made. If I may expand just a little further.’
‘You have just a tiny bit of latitude, Mr Po.’
‘Thank you, My Lord. So, you suggest that your researches have led you to believe that, with Captain Richard Mariner’s memory damaged, Mrs Mariner was checking on the likely destination of the missing cargo, just as you were?’
‘She had been to Ping Chau Island. She had risked her life in order to get into the caves which she had apparently discovered and look closely at the containers which no one else had ever suspected might be there. She had consulted with a Triad leader. Now she was checking the market here. It was always clear to us that such a vast quantity of cocaine could never simply be destined for the Crown Colony.’
‘If not here, then where, Mr Syme, according to your expert estimation?’
‘The People’s Republic of China.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Life as he had grown used to it during the last six weeks ended for Walter Gough at 13:45 on the afternoon of Friday, 20 June 1997. As soon as he heard the thud-thud-thud of the helicopter blades grow loud enough to drown out the grumble of his generator, he knew it was all over. If the truth were told, he had been waiting for the idyll to end ever since it had begun. He was too much a product of a particular place and time to believe, deep down, that Anna and he would ever get away with it. He had done nothing to deserve Anna other than to love her, and he came from a society which could never bring itself to believe that love was all that mattered.
No. Wally had suspected, right from the start, that they were doomed. He had broken too many promises, shirked too many responsibilities, let too many peo
ple down, told too many lies. He had been careful not to probe too deeply, but he suspected that Anna had paid a similar price for her freedom. Perhaps it had been a kind of masochistic, selfdestructive impulse which had made him send the card to poor Phyl, though all he had been aware of consciously was a burning desire to fulfil that last responsibility and see her safe and sound. And to look after the boy. He had continued to love his son long after he had stopped loving his wife. In spite of what he had written, he had secretly hoped she would tell young Wally he was all right; he had kicked over the traces and gone native like that chap in The Moon and Sixpence, but he was out there somewhere, and all right, something of a romantic figure, to be looked up to and fantasised about.
Anna came in to the little house at a run, her face white, in stark contrast to the sun-darkened expanses of her naked body. There was white sand like sugar cast over the upper swells of her breasts, gleaming in the luxuriant black wool of her pubic hair — and only the rotors of a hovering helicopter could have kicked it up on a calm day like today. Wally never found out whether she was pale with shock or with embarrassment. Like him, the first thing she did was reach for swimwear. They said nothing, like guilty murderers discovered in the act, made silent by the burden of their guilt. In those long moments during which the thud-thud of the rotors echoed thunderously around the tiny island, their heaven became a hell. They dressed like strangers, embarras-sedly, back to back, and ran out to meet their fate, not quite side by side, as though they just happened to be here together by chance.
The helicopter had floats as well as wheels and, having circled the tiny island, it settled like a dragonfly in the shallows just beyond the beach. The wind of its rotors lifted the palm-frond thatch on their hut like a typhoon. No sooner was it firmly on the restless water than the side door opened and a slight, active man jumped down into the foam. Grimly — angrily — he waded ashore, wildly out of place in his two-piece suit and city shoes: all soaked. He carried a briefcase which also got drenched by the spray from the slowing rotor blades.
The wiry stranger slopped up onto the sand. For the first three or four steps, clear water gushed out of his stretching shoe leather onto the yellow shore. The soaked material of his trousers clung to his muscular calves. His thick, blue-black hair stuck up wildly. His rage burned and when he shoved his dark, pocked face towards Wally and snarled, ‘Captain Gough, I presume?’ Wally merely nodded, unable to reply, all too aware how skimpy and tight his swimming trunks were.
‘What do you want?’ demanded Anna, her voice scarcely more accommodating than their visitor’s.
‘And you must be the mysterious Anna Leung.’ He made it sound like an accusation — which it was.
‘Who are you?’ faltered Anna, her world beginning to crumble, like Wally’s already had.
‘My name is Edgar Tan and I’ve come to take you back.’
‘And why should we come with you?’ she shrilled, her voice betraying how near to hysterics she was.
‘Anna, old thing —’
‘Shut up, Wally. Just let me talk to this creature!’
‘I say, old girl …’
‘Why should we come with you, Mr Tan? Why should we listen to you for one cold second and why should we even dream of giving up this paradise which we have made for ourselves? Give us one good reason!’
Edgar Tan drew himself up to his full height and looked at the pair of them. They seemed such nice people. Misguided and a little naive, perhaps, but nice. It caused a poignant ache in his heart to do this to them, for he had a sneaking respect for what they had achieved and he hated to bring destruction to a fantasy so close to his own heart. It was this as much as his exhaustion and the shocking price it had cost to hire the helicopter which made the detective so uncharacteristically enraged. But the unlikely lovers seemed to have no idea of the full implications, or of the tragic consequences, of their romantic actions. He looked at their faces, watching so much die in their expressions; he looked at their tanned bodies in the skimpy swimwear and he saw them begin to sag with sudden age as they waited for his word. He realised how a judge must feel, pronouncing a sentence of death.
*
It was lunchtime in Hong Kong. The court had closed early on the completion of the prosecution’s case, and Mr Justice Fang had given permission for a slightly extended midday break to enable Maggie to prepare her opening. Maggie and Andrew sat on the same side of his big desk. Lata, Gerry and Mr Thong sat opposite them. On the desk itself, amid the litter of papers, well clear of the pile of Archbold volumes, lay the remains of a light takeaway lunch.
‘So,’ Maggie was summing up, ‘the cross-examination established that although Syme and Lee have both been working on this case and Anna Leung was their operative, none of them actually came up with a completely waterproof reason why Richard was involved. That is especially true with Ms Leung now vanished. That’s the weak link in the prosecution’s case. Even if they can prove that Richard was closely involved in the deaths and that he handled all the weapons they still haven’t quite made it to the line, have they?’
‘Only the jury can tell us that,’ warned Mr Thong. ‘You know how unpredictable juries can be.’
‘I agree,’ warned Andrew quietly. ‘We can’t take this for granted, Maggie.’
They were well established as lovers now and it was with some hesitation he ventured — for the first time — into an area of possible disagreement. But, characteristically, she reacted in the least predictable fashion. ‘You’re quite right,’ she admitted. ‘We have to take the jury back to the basics here. There is no doubt that the prosecution has covered the weakness in its case very well. They have called an impressive Naval officer, a senior police officer and a senior civil servant. Just their presence adds enormous weight to what they have said. And it does make a kind of sense. It is just conceivable that Richard has grown desperate enough to gamble everything on pirating a shipment of cocaine. Perhaps it is possible that there was a link via the old-time smuggler Charles Lee with the more questionable elements of the People’s Republic and their criminal coastguards.
Perhaps Twelvetoes Ho has got a secret plan which has allowed him to manipulate us all the way along the line. God knows, he could still be manipulating us even now. Maybe Anna Leung was involved way over her head. Perhaps we can imagine that she and Walter Gough are somewhere together — either in a safe haven with the money or the cocaine — or at the bottom of Singapore harbour.
‘No, we have to keep plugging on with the facts that Richard is genuinely amnesiac — that he isn’t putting it on. And we have to keep clear in the jury’s mind that even the prosecution are half convinced that someone else did in fact come aboard …’
‘It was clever of you to get Commander Lee to admit that. I don’t think he even realised what he had said …’
‘Thanks darling. The bottom line is this, however: if we don’t find some way of undermining the case the prosecution have made, then Richard could be in bad trouble.’
‘We were right to push for a quick trial,’ murmured Andrew. ‘I’d hate to be in this position a fortnight from now.’
‘Certainly. There’s no appeal from an execution.’
‘Don’t,’ said Lata. ‘It’s too horrible even to think about.’
‘Even so, we need to push hard. Let’s pray Tom can come up with something when he goes through things with Richard now.’
‘Either that or a call from Robin. How long has it been now?’
‘More than a day. We haven’t talked to Robin directly since we passed on the information about Anna Leung and the containers. What was that? Wednesday noon. And it’s Friday now. God, how time flies. It’s not unusual for Captain Sin to break off radio contact as he goes through the Paracels, according to Mr Shaw, but I must say I’m a bit worried. Lata, would you and Mr Thong pop down and see if you can get any further information from the Heritage Mariner Office, please? But take care, Lata. I think Mr Shaw is weakening towards you in a big way.’
<
br /> ‘Very funny, Maggie.’ Lata rose and crossed to the door. Thong followed her and paused at her shoulder as she turned to look at her friend and colleague. ‘See you in court, Maggie,’ she said. It was an old battle cry — their version of Geronimo.
Maggie looked up and favoured her with a glowing grin. Against her better nature, a little like a sulky child, Lata smiled back. And it was a smile which lingered after she left the office. Maggie’s happiness was so contagious that Lata could resist it no longer; they were friends again.
Gerry bustled off immediately behind them. Balfour Stephenson had not stopped serving the wider community just because one partner had been subsumed so completely into this case.
As Gerry’s footsteps echoed off down the corridor, Andrew wound his arm around Maggie’s shoulder and turned her head into the crook of his elbow. On every occasion they had found themselves alone during the last few days they had made love. ‘Anything I can do to relax you, darling?’ he asked suggestively.
Her smile of answer was tinged for the first time with regret instead of sensuousness. ‘Yes, love,’ she answered, picking up the papers from the top of his desk and dusting off a grain or two of egg fried rice. ‘You can go through this opening with me.’
Commander Lee and Dr Chu had allowed Tom Fowler to have some time alone with the accused, and this time Tom had thought to bring a chart with him. It lay spread on the table between the men now, and the psychologist was guiding the ship’s master along the route of the Sulu Queen’s last voyage. But to the Londoner’s untutored ear, the names of the hazards still sounded nothing like the gibberish of the word-association exercise a few days ago.
‘So, you came out of Singapore and through past this thing here called Horsburgh.’
‘It’s a lighthouse. The Horsburgh lighthouse … Richard’s words were unthinking at first but coloured by growing wonder on the repetition as he realised that he had remembered something without help, drugs, hypnosis or appreciable effort. And what he remembered was correct — deep in his bones he was certain of that.
